Posted on by

music: Cage The Elephant – Trouble

Everywhere I look I catch a glimpse of you.

Tell Me That I Am Pretty CD

_________

You might also be interested in eBook:

Bare Detectives: A Wrecked Life

Chapter 1 Excerpt

A warm breeze blew across the sweaty face of Jim Toro.  He stood outside a bar in the early morning.  When the bar was open, it would stay open for days on end though strictly speaking, that was illegal in the town of Hearthville.

People mulled about in the dimly lit parking lot of the Chase Bar. The bar had swinging doors like it was a refuge from the old wild days of Hearthville. Once upon a time, Hearthville was more like the old wild west than the old wild west was.  But like Atlanta, Hearthville had been tamed–for the most part.  Still there was the Chase Bar with men who fancied themselves a rough lot  who liked women who liked men and for more than just a chaperon on a lonely night or an unforgiving morning.

Jim felt sad.  He had lost his job.  He feared he was going to lose his wife. And he had discovered some dangerous things that he wished he had not discovered.  He had learned the identity of the man responsible for bringing 70% of the drugs into Hearthville and 40% of the drugs into Atlanta.  And then there was that business of the embezzlement from Sports123Up where he had lost his job.

Skelkey walked up to Jim.  “Man, what are you doing here?  You should be home with your wife.”

Jim said, “Thanks for letting me be one of your mules.  I needed the money.”

Skelkey shook his head. “I wish I could help you some other way.  You don’t need to be in this business.”

Jim said, “Neither do you.”

Skelkey laughed. He rolled his head around and then back again. His head stopped moving cocked to the side and with an uncompromising stare. He told Jim,  “I am a gang leader.  This isn’t a business for me.  This isn’t a way for me to pick up a few bucks when I have bills coming due.  This is my life.”

Jim nodded.  “I will never play baseball again. I can’t work for
Sports Insinuated and Sports123Up want nothing more to do with me.  I’ve applied for jobs with other companies but I think I have been blacklisted.  I need money. Let me work as your mule.”

Skelkey said, “The last time you worked for me was nothing to brag about.  You almost got caught.”

Jim agreed.  “Thank goodness it was you watching my back.  In my defense it was not my fault.  You know that.”

“I know. Weird shit happened.  But it happened.  And it often happens to you.” Skelkey said, “What if I just give you the money.  How much do you need?”

Jim said, “I am not a charity case.  Let me earn the money.”

Skelkey said, “Mr. M. does not like you.”

Jim said, “I don’t like him either.”

Skelkey said, “He does not like you knowing who he is.”

Jim asked, “Do you think he wants me dead?”

Skelkey said, “I’ve told him to leave you alone.”

Jim said, “That was brave of you.”

Skelkey said, “Every once in a while I have to let him know that I am not his flunky.  I am my own boss and I call some of the shots.  I am not his shoeshine boy.  But you may still be in danger.  He may not be my boss but I am not his boss.”

Jim nervously laughed as the weight of the conversation weighed upon him.  “Yeah.  I have gangsters to the left of me and white collar criminals to the right and I have no idea who is the more deadly of the lot.”

Note that the Bare Detectives is now the Hearthville Serial:

I have unpublished Bare Detectives: A Wrecked Life but it will show back up again rewritten as part of the Hearthville Serial.  The above excerpt was to promote Bare Detectives: A Wrecked Life.

 

 

Posted on by

Excuse me, we don’t have to rethink anything

So there is an article on Yahoo from Reuters that is titled:

“Web needs rethink to stop “nasty” ideas spreading, says its creator”

The World Wide Web needs a complete rethink to prevent spying and the spread of “nasty, mean ideas” on social media websites, its inventor, Tim Berners-Lee, said on Monday.

Me:

Before I was online I used to operate along with lots of other people BBS software where people could call into our computers and download files and discuss stuff on our public and private forums.  They could also play games on our computer systems.  Then the internet became a big thing and some BBS operators began to pull usenet into their forum system.  Back in those days, it was a big deal.

Now understand, the software we used was way ahead of and superior to the crap that would come to be called  the web. The web was more simple to use but it was inferior in many ways to other access tools people might use such a telnet, ftp, and mail systems.  The early web sites were far inferior to what we could do with our own network systems that people could access by phone.  When myspace came along, it largely emulated what people could do on the old BBS software.

The BBS software people could use back in those days was free speech.  Usenet was free speech.  And from the very beginning there were what was called flame wars where people disagreed and sometimes the forums had to be closely monitored just as online internet forums still do.  But the monitoring was done in such a way that largely allowed free speech and dissenting opinion.

When you read stuff like Tim Berners-Lee you need to remember that the BBS systems largely went away as people discovered the internet and the web.  But do not think those systems were inferior as far as social networks. They were not.  They were inferior in that you had a limit to the number of phone lines and the number of people who could connect at once.  We could not compete against the Information Services like AOL and GEnie and Compuserve and the larger internet which many of us didn’t have the resources to provide an entry to access.

Also remember that the government wanted us and CB radios and to some degree HAM radios to go away.  They wanted the communication on a system they could spy on and that they could censor.  Although it has been a long winding road we have gone down from the 1980’s, the “fake” privacy,  the secret spying,  and the blatant censorship that Tim Berners-Lee speaks to was the government agenda from the very beginning.

This is opinion.  Do not read this as an attack on Tim Berners-Lee.  It was not intended as such.

The point of this is to hopefully make you think and to oppose ideas that support broad censorship.  Never be afraid of ideas.  Not even nasty ones because even a nasty idea can lead to the mother of the next invention.

Don’t believe there is such a thing as privacy on the internet.  There never has been.

Posted on by

US trade deficit drops in February 2017

Trade

The deficit fell to $43.6 billion in February, 9.6 percent below January’s deficit of $48.2 billion, the Commerce Department reported. Exports rose a small 0.2 percent to $192.9 billion. Imports dropped 1.8 percent to $236.4 billion as the flow of Chinese goods dropped by $8.6 billion, led by a reduction cell phone imports.

The trade deficit with China slipped in February to $23 billion, 26.6 percent below the January total; but still too high. And the reduction may be technical due to the Chinese New Year and not part of a trend: YET.

The small rise in exports in February was led by U.S.-made autos and autos parts, which climbed 1.5 percent to the highest level since July 2014. Exports of petroleum products were up 8.6 percent. Those gains helped offset declines in exports of commercial airplanes, farm products and industrial engines.

The increase in exports of goods was driven by consumer goods which increased $.7 billion to $17.1 billion and military and other goods which increased $.5 billion to $4.9 billion. The decrease in imports of goods were driven by consumer goods which decreased $3.1 billion to $49.0 billion and automotive vehicles, parts and engines which decreased $2.6 billion to $29.1 billion. There was a services surplus for the month of $21.4 billion.

Posted on by

Trump administration reviewing extreme vetting policies

Satellite

Trump officials told the newspaper they are evaluating whether to require foreign nationals who visit the U.S. to divulge cell phone contacts and passwords for social networking websites.

Opinion:
Not everyone has an internet profile. Some people hate the internet. So the government can’t just assume because a person does not have an internet footprint means they are lying. On the other hand, the bad guys will use phones that reveal nothing. They might even dummy their phones so as to put innocent people on their phone/internet list and then if they do anything, those people might end up on a watch list who do not belong there.

In a way it is good that Trump wants to ask for the information rather than just use bio-metrics and some clandestine way to come up with the information. But either way the information is not likely to be full proof in revealing anything. People can use radios for communication. The more sophisticated hack through satellites to relay information. The less sophisticated may use carrier pigeons or smoke signals or just pass notes in a crowded bar.

Is the potential evolution of our cellphone number becoming our identity a good or bad thing? I don’t know.

I started out loving technology and I was usually ahead of the game in understanding various tech. Sayata actually started out to be a tech company and I may still go back to writing programs. But there is a part of me that totally hates tech right now. And these kind of conversations that attempt to rationalize the total invasion of privacy does not make me grow any fonder of technology.

I grew up in a world where the United States was defined as the good guy and the USSR was defined as the bad guy. And now seeing the USA doing things that we were taught are WRONG when the USSR was doing similar just makes me feel sad.

Posted on by

Four governors team up, urge feds to leave the marijuana business alone

Governors who lead states that have moved  toward legalization of marijuana have a growing concern that President Trump and Attorney General Sessions  will hurt people who have been building businesses in the grand experiment to legalize marijuana.  Other states are concerned as well as they have been moving in the direction of legalization as well.  If President Trump were to try to upend what these and other states are doing, it could have serious political consequences.

 

Four governors team up, urge feds to keep marijuana enforcement status quo

Posted on by

University of South Dakota Installs Free Condom Dispensers

South Dakota Department of Health says that in 2016, the state saw the most chlamydia cases ever in one year and the most gonorrhea cases since the 1980s. The number of people who have unprotected sex is again a growing problem. The college wants to balance between trying to make sure that students know the condoms are available but at the same time provide some privacy for students who may be embarrassed if seen getting condoms.

The problem of STDs on the rise is not limited to just South Dakota.

There were more reported cases of sexually transmitted diseases during last few years than ever before in the United States, according to the latest STD surveillance report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
So the bottom line is, PRACTICE SAFE SEX. Even if you are in what you think is a monogamous relationship, make sure that your partner is of the same impression. At the beginning of a relationship, regardless of all the promises and assertions use a condom. And also consider that if your lover is not comfortable with a condom, that is a sign that they HAVE NOT been practicing safe sex.

Posted on by

Of Microchips and Euthanasia

When reading an article on the Swedish startup hub Epicenter implanting microchips in employees I couldn’t help but think about the movie “Logan’s Run,” where people are only allowed to live to the age 21. I thought the age was 35 but apparently the age in the movie is 21. (I wonder if the change in age is part of a Mandela Effect.) Regardless, the age in the movie doesn’t matter. That isn’t the point. The point is, what if the microchip people allow to be implanted in their body has some kind of kill switch such as to send blood pressure extra high to finish the person off if their microchip registers future health cost increasing for that person.

That thought might sound extra paranoid but can you put anything past the rich trying to reduce the cost of their slaves, I mean employees.

In the article some employee says “I like being able to open a door by just waving my hand.” Isn’t that the very definition of lazy? Maybe that person deserves to have a kill switch implanted. Just kidding. Not serious. I don’t wish harm on anyone.

Articles:
About microchips being implanted:
Employees getting implanted with microchips

Legality of euthanasia in various countries and states within the United States